The Bitterbynde Trilogy (145 page)

A long meadow had been scythed flat. The cut grasses lay flat in the sun, drying.

‘He's too hasty,' objected Cooper, the bailiff. ‘He does not cut close enough to the ground. There's a great deal of waste.'

‘Nay,' laughed Arrowsmith. ‘You quibble, man. 'Tis right enough in my eyes.'

‘Right enough? See how long the stubble stands, Arrowsmith. You favour the wight as no other man would.'

Arrowsmith bristled. ‘I favour him no more than would any other mortal man.'

It was then that Tahquil fancied she caught, in the flash of Arrowsmith's eyes, a fleeting fey quality.

‘Did Finoderee in sooth mow this meadow single-handed in one night?' she digressed, to temper the strange antagonism that seemed to have arisen between Master and bailiff.

‘Aye that he did,' lazily said Cooper. ‘He's a good worker, if he can be kept under the thumb.'

The steward rejoined, ‘The vigour of his mowing is like a whirlwind! His scythe thrashes too fast for the human eye to perceive, and the grass flies up so thick it blocks out the sun! You ought to see his threshing!'

‘He whisks horseloads of stone and wrack about the countryside like a little giant,' elaborated the reeve, ‘and when he shepherds, sometimes in his enthusiasm he folds in wild goats, purrs and hares along with the sheep.'

‘'Tis a pity about Dan Broome's red cow,' remarked Caitri.

‘Dan Broome? Who is he?' the men wondered.

‘There haven't been Broomes in Appleton Thorn for nigh on eighty years,' said the reeve.

At all times, Arrowsmith poured libations of hospitality upon his guests. Wherever they went they were greeted with friendly smiles and small gifts of local wares until they thought that Appleton Thorn must be one of the best places in Erith, but Tahquil's heart never ceased to ache. Ever and anon she would lift her head and glance to the east, and Arrowsmith did not fail to mark this.

On the way back from the fields, he let his horse drop back beside Tahquil's.

‘You and your ladies cannot stay in my house tonight,' he said quietly. ‘My house has been troubled by a certain presence every Flench Ridings Night for years. I have vowed that I am going to wait up for it tonight with a wizard-wrought tilhal and an axe, to get rid of it once and for all.'

‘What manner of wight is it?'

‘'Tis a master of glamour. No two people looking at it see the same thing. One man might see a big lump of slub like a jellyfish, another might see a manlike form with no head. To me, it appears like a beast lacking legs.'

‘Is it dangerous?'

He shrugged. ‘I know not, but 'tis best to be sure. I have made arrangements for you and my sisters and the servant to lodge at my neighbour's house. I shall wait alone tonight.'

That evening, the Village Hornblower lifted up the great sickle-shaped, gold-clasped Forest Horn like a moon on its ornate baldric and sounded it three times, as he always did, as it had been sounded in Appleton Thorn every evening since antiquity.

‘'Tis to direct folk lost in the forest,' the inhabitants explained, ‘a custom from olden times when folk used to walk among the trees, before the place turned wightish and unseelie. Nobody goes in there now. No need to keep Forest Horn going really, but 'tis one of the old village laws we've never bothered to revoke. If all is going well, why change things?'

After the sun had gone under the hills, Finoderee came to the East Gate.

‘Let him in,' said Arrowsmith, hard at work in the midst of preparations for the customary ritual. Garlands of marsh marigolds and birch were being laid around the village well, and massed white hawthorn blossoms hung above every door, mingled with the goosey gullies, the catkins of sallow—none of which were allowed to be brought into the houses, for to do so ostensibly attracted bad luck.

Cooper brought Finoderee before the Master of the Village and Lord of the Hundred.

‘More mowing tonight?' asked Finoderee. ‘The round-field, under Bonfire Hill?'

‘Aye, but let the work be better carried out this time,' said Arrowsmith testily. ‘If you're going to do it, do it well. You're not cutting the stalks close enough to the ground.'

‘Not close enough?' echoed the wight.

‘Aye. The stubble is too long.'

‘Too long?' repeated the wight again. ‘Galan Arrowsmith, 'tis the mortal blood that's singing in yer ears. You never before said such a thing to Finoderee. What is it you are trying to prove to your comrades? Is Sule Skerry so far away?'

‘Go on with you. I am busy this night and have no time for idle chatter.'

Finoderee wandered off a short way then stopped. His shoulders seemed to swell.

‘Too long? I'll give ye too long!' he shouted. ‘Finoderee is a good mower. I plough, I sow, I reap, I mow. I herd cattle and sheep, I thresh and rake and carry, I build stacks. I can clear a daymath in an hour and want nothing better than a crockful of bithag afterwards. I'll not mow an inch without you mowing alongside o' me, Arrowsmith. I'll outswathe ye ten to one and I'll show you
too long.'

‘I need that meadow mowed, and tonight I am busy!'

Finoderee was unmoved.

‘Very well,' exasperatedly said Arrowsmith. ‘Meet me at the round-field at
uhta.
Will that give us enough time?'

‘Enough time for Finoderee.'

‘Good. Now go.'

‘And by the by, Arrowsmith, where's me crock of bithag from yesternight?'

‘Wainwright will give it you on the way out.'

‘I've never heard of a village that makes so free with wights,' marvelled Caitri as Finoderee lumbered away to the inn, escorted by Fletcher. ‘Talking to them and treating them like
lorraly
folk!'

‘Appleton Thorn is different,' said Arrowsmith curtly.

A faceless figure rode around the village on a flench, a wide plank carried along by two burly flench-bearers. He stopped at all the houses to collect small coins, flowers and food, after which he returned to the inn, where the collected gifts were divided between him and his helpers. A crowd of children followed him, singing songs.

The enigmatic Flench Ridings was another seemingly redundant custom. Its origin had long ago passed into obscurity. The chosen villager dressed himself in old clothes stuck all over with burdock burrs so that not a particle of fabric showed. He put on a burry mask and a flower-covered hat, and took up two staves, one in each hand. On these staves were tied two flags, the Royal Standard of Eldaraigne and the Empire Jack, and the handles were decorated with spring flowers.

This event having taken place, to the great amusement of Caitri and Viviana who thought it ought to be introduced at Court, time came to retire for the evening. Most of the men went to the inn to carry on the celebrations. Arrowsmith was not amongst them. He sat alone in his house, waiting.

The village resonated soundlessly.

It was an eldritch outpouring of silence, below the reaches of hearing.

In the next-door house of an elderly neighbour, Tahquil toyed with a twisted hazel baton which Arrowsmith had given her on bidding them goodnight. She had noticed his hands then; the skin was rough. Between the fingers stretched a fine, translucent membrane.

The sisters, Betony and Sorrel, had eaten no supper. They feigned tranquillity as they sat with the spinster neighbour, teaching plant lore to Tahquil's companions.

‘Yes, of course you know that you must not pick red campion,' said Sorrel sagely. ‘If you do, 'twill bring thunder.'

‘There are others, too, that will bring thunder,' interjected old Hazel the neighbour, her gnarled fingers busy at lace-making. ‘Thunderflowers and wood anemone and thunderbolts, which some call speedwell.'

‘Nonetheless,' added Sorrel, ‘you can protect against lightning with elder, house leek and biting stonecrop.'

‘And hypericum,' said her sister. She bit her lip and looked towards the curtained window.

‘What is the purpose of this?' asked Tahquil, holding up the hazel baton.

The sisters exchanged shy glances.

‘That's a honeysuckle stick,' said Sorrel. ‘Honeysuckle has entwined itself around that stem when it was green. Now that the woodbine has been removed, the hazel is twisted.'

‘But for what purpose?'

‘'Tis just a good-luck charm.'

‘A love charm,' breathed Caitri.

A wind came up. Something fell with a crash, or a door slammed. In the stables, a horse shrilled and kicked at the walls.

The sisters stiffened, turning their heads towards their house where their brother waited.

‘What is this entity that troubles you every year?' asked Caitri. ‘How does it get inside the Fence?'

‘Alas, we know not,' answered Sorrel. ‘Galan thinks it flies through the air and down the chimney, or maybe comes up under the hearthstone, using it like a trapdoor. It has been seen to run fleeter than a hound and fly swifter than an eagle.'

‘What is your brother going to do?'

‘Again, we know not. He has forbidden us to keep vigil with him. I cannot bear to contemplate what might happen—oh, let us converse again, that our thoughts might be distracted!'

In his empty house, Galan Arrowsmith sat in a chair with his axe resting across his knee and a carved ashen tilhal in his hand. On the table, rush-candles burned, each with its gorse-yellow bud at the tip. In the fireplace a gorse-wood fire leaped with a bright, clear flame, and the wind came invading down the chimney like Namarran raiders. Sparks went up in evanescent flowers.

The hour was getting late when there came a sound like dead meat slammed down, as if someone had flung a carcass on the floor. Arrowsmith looked up.

‘Myrtle is lovely,' said Betony next door, speaking a little too loudly, ‘but of all the plants not cultivated in gardens the hawthorn is my favourite, for it is both fair and strong. Its blossoms are as white as purity, its berries as red as passion, its leaves are painted with the green of youthful Springtime. Its thorny branches are kind to small birds of all descriptions, giving them shelter, so that hawthorn hedgerows ring with song. Even its Winter starkness has a wild sort of beauty, etched in black lines against grey skies.'

‘Yet those thorns can be cruel,' Sorrel pointed out, after a quick glance at the window. ‘And of course bringing the flowers of the may into the house invites ill fortune.'

‘'Tis the same with lily-of-the-valley and all white flowers,' averred Betony.

‘Ah, but 'tis not as dangerous as bringing in lilac,' interjected Hazel.

‘I'll not disagree that thorns can be harsh and fierce,' Betony said, ‘yet only towards the foolish, or to the ignorant who approach them without due caution. And as for bringing the blossoms indoors—why would one wish to pluck such beauty and watch it wither, when it might display its loveliness for so much longer, crisp and strong on the twig, kissed by sunshine and rain? It is said that of all white flowers, the may was most beloved by the Faêran, and that is why they cursed those who would break its boughs, and hide it away within walls.'

‘It is reputed that thorn bushes were under the protection of the Fair Ones,' said Hazel. ‘Some say the protection lingers yet. When I was a girl, any thorn which grew alone in a field was called a Faêrie Thorn. To this day, people say it is not right to cut such a bush. Cutting down a Faêrie tree brings death and madness—' She broke off.

Outside, a commotion had erupted. The five damsels and the elderly neighbour hastened from the house. A man ran through the Errechd, shouting, ‘Come and see! Come and see! Out along the West Road, at the top of the cliffs!'

A knot of villagers was heading out of the West Gate where the guards were still talking excitedly about what the Master of the Village had been hunting when he passed through it several moments earlier.

Grabbing their cloaks, the girls followed. Out along the cliff tops they went, and the salt gale rode up over the side, out of the firth to meet them. Spray blew upward in jets spouting over the top of the cliff. Violent, the sea below churned where it met the rocks, like boiling cream. Away on the far bank the cliffs gleamed like chiselled stone doves in the starlight. Crystal halls of water smashed there, gauzed by the mist of their own vaporisation. Their thundering was blown ragged by the gale.

At the top of the cliffs,
It
was pinned, with Arrowsmith's axe sticking out of It. To Tahquil, It looked like a sack of white wool.

‘Don't be afeard,' said Arrowsmith, his rough hand warm around hers. ‘It came to the house. I chased It, with the tilhal in one hand and the axe in the other. It took the road to the cliffs and I followed hard after. Just as It was going to slide over the cliffs and into the sea, I said a Word and slung the axe, which stuck fast in It.'

‘Where's Spider?' the villagers were shouting. ‘Fetch Spider!'

However, Spider, it seemed, had made overly merry on Flench Ridings Night and still slept the sticky apple-wine slumber.

Gathered together at a distance they considered safe, the audience scrutinised the strange thing pinned to the cliff top. It did not move. There was no way of knowing whether It was alive or dead. Indeed, there was no way of knowing Its true appearance, if It had one, because each person saw something different.

‘We'd better cover It over,' someone suggested, so a few young men ran to fetch shovels. They scooped up soil and flung it over the entity, until It was buried under a thick layer of dirt. Then they dug a deep, wide trench around It, so that neither man nor beast might approach the dangerous object and possibly disturb It.

In fact, none of the villagers dared go near It. They stood around with the wind whipping and harrying at their cloaks, like a flock of strange birds flapping.

Now that the agitation was over and they discovered that they were in the perilous position of being outside the Fence at night, folk began to hasten homewards, clapping Arrowsmith on the back and congratulating him on a fine night's work.